India-Sri Lanka rivalry is not one of the most intense rivalries in world cricket, but these two countries play so frequently against each other that we often get to see some of the memorable innings in India-Sri Lanka encounters.
Here are the top 5 knocks played by the Indian batsman against Sri Lanka in One Day International Cricket –
#1 Rohit Sharma (264):
This was Rohit’s comeback series after an injury lay-off and he didn’t show any sign of rustiness at all. Of course, he was a bit circumspect early on, but his timing was spot on right from ball one and as he progressed further in his innings, he threw caution to the wind.
Rohit, who had already scored a double hundred in his ODI career, scored another double hundred and this time, he went ahead to convert it into a 250.
Rohit, who was dismissed on the last ball of the innings at the score of 264, broke Virender Sehwag’s record of the highest individual score in ODI cricket.
#2 MS Dhoni (183):
Those were the days when MS Dhoni had just burst onto the international scene and was known for his slam-bang cricket, rather than calculative cricket which later became his strongest trait.
Dhoni was promoted up the order while India were chasing a target of close to 300 and Dhoni smashed the Sri Lankan bowlers to all corners of the park on his way to an unbeaten match-winning knock of 183.
#3 Sourav Ganguly (183):
Sourav Ganguly played this knock at Taunton, England. Although the English conditions are generally difficult for the openers early on, the ball didn’t move around that much on that particular day and the ground was pretty small as well.
Ganguly took a bit of time to get his eye in and once he got going, he hit some huge sixes, a couple of which actually landed outside the stadium. Ganguly scored his 183 runs off just 158 balls with 17 fours and 7 sixes.
#4 Virender Sehwag (146):
Sehwag was at the peak of his career at that point of time in 2009 and he came across a Sri Lankan attack which was not in great form. The surface was pretty flat as well, which only made the task difficult for the Sri Lankan bowlers.
Not only Sehwag, who of course was the highest scorer for India with his individual score of 146, the other Indian batsmen also scored at a pretty good clip and India posted a total of 414 on the board.
However, to everyone’s surprise, Sri Lanka came very close to the target and lost the game by just 3 runs.
#5 Rohit Sharma (208):
This was the third double hundred of Rohit Sharma’s career and it came on a surface which was not particularly easy for batting early on. The new ball moved around a bit, but Rohit weathered the storm and as the surface got easy for batting, he went berserk.
Rohit went from the score of 100 to 200 in a space of just 36 deliveries.
While the stand-in Indian captain was aggressive against every Sri Lankan bowler, he was particularly severe against Suranga Lakmal whom he hit for 4 sixes off 4 consecutive deliveries.
